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The Kato School of Dodging
AC Training Chamber This stark, spacious chamber is well reinforced and shielded to stand up to the strain of many practice bouts. A gleaming training drone stands in one corner of the room, ready for work. The walls are sheathed in reflective alloys, allowing the combatants to observe their motions and progress. Contents: Roadbuster Kup Training Drone - AC Obvious exits: Shaft Upward U leads to Autobot City - Repair Bay. Kup is in a foul, foul mood. First, Motormaster kidnapped Chromedome, right under his nose! Then, Chromedome, for some insane reason, decided to reprogram Menasor. If that wasn't bad enough, Menasor then tried to blow up the Earth with really bad weather and... escaped... and is a super-genius on the loose. Frak. Kup just had a fight yesterday, but it's been too long since he's gotten his hands dirty, so he stomps into the training room with an eye toward tearing the training drone a new one and then some. Blurr has been out of sight and mind for awhile now, too timid since his depowering to really deal with risking himself in battle. This isn't (quite) the same as saying he's been wallowing in his misery, though. He sees himself as useless now, but doesn't intend to stay that way, and so he's been spending a lot of time in the training rooms, practicing against the drone. He's already inside, firing at it, when Kup arrives. He looks towards the door as it opens and says, speaking at normal Transformer speed, "Oh, hi, Ku-aaaack!" It just goes to show how much he's slowed down, that he doesn't even get those three words out before the drone blasts him. Combat: Blurr misses Training Drone - AC with his Disruptor attack! Combat: Training Drone - AC strikes Blurr with its Kick attack! Roadbuster sighs. Poor Blurr. Roadbuster should've known better that one training session wan't gonig to cure Blurr's problems over night. Still, at least the blue guy has the gumption to keep trying. "How are you feeling, Blurr? Been practicing like I showed you?" Kup actually winces when Blurr greets him and is promptly booted. He snaps, "Don't you remember how to dodge, kid?" Then Kup remembers. Oh, right, the poor lad's lost what... what makes Blurr /blur/. He looks over at Roadbuster and laughs, "What, you teachin' 'im about bullet time?" Ha ha ha. Blurr cringes as Kup demands to know if he remembers how to dodge. "Uhm. No," he says quietly. "B-b-but I've been trying to relearn. Except that Roadbuster says I should focus on just learning to shoot first and then practicing dodging later. So I did, but... I'm still working on it." He picks himself up off the ground and checks his laser, frowning at it. "I want to remember because getting hit, well, hurts!" "Getting hurt is one of the best teachers. If you can survive through it." Roadbuster replies. "I was showing him how to fight when he's /not/ like greased lightning, starting with shooting." The drab Wrecker adds quietly. He staysa bac from the other Autobots, nto wanting to interfere with whatever Kup may have to say. "Blurr's already heard my advice, let's see what you've got to teach him, old man." Roadbuster has disconnected. Kup looks Blurr over and frowns. All the spirit's just gone out of Blurr. Sure, he doesn't talk so annoying anymore, but he's just a shell of himself. Something's got to be done, and he's glad Roadbuster at least made a start at it. He says slowly, "Well, son, it really depends on whether you see yourself as more defensive or aggressive. Me? I'm all aggressive. Don't care about dodging, so long as I get my fists into those slagsuckers, but that might not suit you so well, considerin'." "Yeah, definitely more defensive," Blurr admits. "I mean, I always was, and I.. k-know that I'm not much use as a messenger anymore so I need to learn to fight, but I'm still not that sturdy or strong and my firepower isn't that high, so lasting longer so I can hit more would be better." He aims his gun towards the drone, sighting down the pistol - this is a new thing for him, actually - and firing. Combat: Blurr sets his defense level to Aggressive. Combat: Blurr strikes Training Drone - AC with his Disruptor attack! Combat: Training Drone - AC strikes Blurr with its Electro-Sword attack! Kup nods at Blurr's reply, and he sighs, "Whelp. If you can't rely on your reflexes any more, what you /can/ rely on is cover. Even in a blank white room, you can find cover, even if it's only gtting behind your opponent, so's he can't see you. Lemme call up a few simulations, and you tell me how you could make use of cover in 'em." First... the plains of Kansas? Blurr looks around, eyes wide and blinking. "But but but these are plains! There are no cover!" he protests, gesturing around. Kup shakes his head and smirks, rolling down into a ditch and popping up to take a shot at Blurr, talking as he goes, "Says you, kid. Even if you don't wanna lay low and be a snake in the tall grass, there's ditches, rock outcroppings, fences, even a few trees! Open your optics and look again." Combat: Kup misses Blurr with his Pay Attention! (Pistol) attack! "AAARGH!" Blurr shouts in an instinctual panic, but he immediately throws himself down behind a small rock outcropping, anyway. "Hey, you could have warned me, you know!" he exclaims, irritated, as he returns fire from behidn it. Combat: Blurr sets his defense level to Guarded. Combat: Blurr strikes Kup with his Electro-Laser attack! Combat: Kup has been temporarily incapacitated. Kup is frozen, since Blurr took his advice and went and hid behind a small rock outcropping. Wow. His advice doesn't usually work /that/ well! Blurr's optics flicker, startled to have hit Kup. "I hit?" he asks out loud, confused. "I hit!" he repeats, now pleased. He aims his weapon and fires again. "All right!" he adds cheerfully. Combat: Blurr strikes Kup with his Disruptor attack! The second shot really does more to shock Kup back into action than it actually hurts. Kup warns, "Now don't get cocky, kid. Next simulation." Now they're floating in spaaaaace, next to some mysteriously large black squares, against a burning bright sun. Kup touches down on a square and explains, "When there's a real bright object shining, y'ken sometimes hide against it and won't be seen, 'cos people don't look there." The old fighter pilot trick of hiding in the sun. Blurr looks confused and tilts his head. "But I'm not a flier!" he objects, looking up at the sun as he touches down on the square. "How can I hide against the sun if I can't stay in the air?" Kup covers his face with a hand and groans, "Y'ain't ever heard of backlighting?" Kup kicks off the square, floating 'up' into a square-less patch, such that the sun is at his back. Staring at him becomes very, very hard, unless one enjoys burning out one's optical sensors. Blurr tries to look directly at Kup, and finds that it is, indeed, hard to keep doing so. He squints and turns his head away after a moment. "Okay okay so even if I'm not flying or floating or whatever I can just make sure the sun is at my back?" Kup cautions, "It's not a panacea, and if you overuse it, folks will get wise, but it's a trick you can pull out every now and then. Next simulation." Great, now they're underwater, in a kelp forest. Colourful fish swim about. Blurr is immediately distracted by the colorful fish. He tilts his head and tries to follow them. "Wow! But we don't do much fighting in water, Kup!" While Blurr is distracted, Kup tries to nail him with another shot, snapping, "Look alive, lad, or you won't for long! You have to be prepared for anything. We keep dumping Trypticon in the water - what if you were inside Trypticon, a sabotage job, stealing his transformation cog, and had to fight your way outta him as he flooded and then fight s'more out in the ocean?" Combat: Kup sets his defense level to Aggressive. Combat: Kup misses Blurr with his Disruptor attack! Blurr is surrounded and partially obscured by fish (though no fault of his own) and is thus a harder to hit target. Unfortunately, as Kup fires, the fish scatter, removing Blurr's cover, and his optics go wide. "Hey!" he exclaims, and throws himself down - among the kelp. "Maybe, but it's not like I'm used to other Autobots suddenly attacking me!" he answers, firing back. Combat: Blurr strikes Kup with his Disruptor attack! Kup is apparently being the Kato to Blurr's Clouseau today. As Blurr nails him in the upper arm, he points out, "So what you're sayin', kid, is that a Decepticon just needs to put on an Autobot symbol, and you'd never see him coming - y'know, that's cover, too, in a way." "Of course I'd see him coming!" Blurr protests. "It's the ones with cloaks that I don't see coming! I just... well, I wouldn't expect /you/ to be a Decepticon, Kup!" Then he looks around at the kelp. "It is? Oh, it is!" Kup covers his face with his hands. Oh, Blurr. Dropping one hand, he laughs and admits, "Yeah, Blurr. The kelp is cover. Glad ya noticed." So not what Kup meant, but he'll take that he can get. Baby steps. Normally, he'd protest that a Decepticon Kup is impossible, but... those Dominator Discs. Kup grimaces, just thinking about them. Blurr watches Kup's reaction, looking a little confused and frowning. What'd he say wrong? But then Kup's... not doing anything, and seems a little distracted. Blurr's expression turns sneaky (for Blurr), and he pushes himself up and launches himself at Kup. "Shouldn't get distracted, Kup!" Combat: Blurr misses Kup with his Distraction! (Punch) attack! Kup darts behind a flashing school of fish, smirking. "I didn't." Then, he kicks up some sand from the seabed, clouding the water. "C'mon, find me." Combat: Kup sets his defense level to Protected. "Hey!" Blurr exclaims, covering his eyes with his arm. Then he shakes his head, realizing that /that/ won't help at all! He looks into the cloud and squints, looking for a shape more solid than the rest. That, maybe? All this focus is leaving him a bit more vulnerable, though. Combat: Blurr sets his defense level to Fearless. Combat: Blurr strikes Kup with his Disruptor attack! Kup does get nailed again, but as Blurr focuses on him, Kup bounds forward, reaches out, and tries to grab Blurr in a lock. "That's the other thing about cover. If an enemy gets too frustrated tryin'a find you, it can make him /stupid/." Combat: Kup strikes Blurr with his Grab attack! Blurr's grabbed in a headlock! He flails, then tries to squirm out of Kup's hold. "Hey! Leggo leggo leggo!" Kup advises calmly, "Stop flailing. That's pretty useless. Tuck your chin in against your neck, so I can't choke the fuel lines to your noggin, and grab my arms and try and drag them down a bit to give you a bit of room. While you're doin' that, stomp on my foot or kick in my knee to try to startle me and get me to let go." Blurr, his head still stuck, nods. He tucks his chin against his neck and grabs Kup's arms, then attempts to stomp on the veteran's foot, because as strong as Kup is, without a distraction, he isn't going to get out of there. Combat: Blurr misses Kup with his Stomp to the Foot (Kick) attack! Kup, having just suggested that plan, moves his foot out of the way. He notes, "If you had the momentum, you could also try flipping me over your head, but you're a bit weak for that, eh?" However, Blurr's stomp stick kicks up some sand, so Kup lets Blurr go. "A bit more sand like that, and I'd've had trouble seeing. Might've worked." Blurr stumbles back as Kup releases his head and shakes himself off. "Why?" he asks. "I mean, you were already holding me and you wouldn't need to see me to hold me, would you?" Though Blurr speaks at normal speeds, and he now includes pauses where one would expect (except they were always there, too fast to be noticed), his speech patterns tend a bit towards the repetative, meaning it occasionally takes him longer to say something than it would otherwise. Kup agrees ambiably enough, "S'right. I /don't/ need to see you to hold you, but I have experience. If you're lucky, startling an opponent enough can make him let you go, even if you don't hurt him. Next simulation." They're in a bar now, with lots of table, chairs, stools, a counter, and plenty of bottles. Blurr looks around, frowning. "Probably not a bad idea, I mean, we seem to be having fights in these a lot and... hey!" he shouts, then dives behind the bar, because by this point he's totally expecting Kup to attack him while he's distracted by the surroundings. Combat: Blurr sets his defense level to Protected. The Global Pose Tracker marks that Blurr has 'skipped' his action for this round. Kup beams at Blurr finally seems to be getting the reflex to take cover beaten into him. One hand on his hip, Kup points out, "Great. Now what are you gonna do if I explode those bottles behind you, and you get rained on by glass shards and flammable liquids, eh?" He hefts out his musket, like he's planning just that. "Uhm... protect my eyes and joints?" Blurr asks, still tucked behind the bar. "Crouch behind a chair? I mean, I'm not tough, but I think I can handle glass and flaming liquids, although I imagine the flaming liquids will hurt some..." "I just think you need to think about your exit strategy from there a bit more, Blurr, my boy," Kup suggests, putting the musket away. He picks up a chair and hefts it experimentally. "Don't wanna get... pinned down." He then cracks the chair over the counter and down at Blurr, and given the force of the throw, the metal chair legs could well puncture through Blurr and skewer him to the floor. Combat: Kup strikes Blurr with his Chair Skewer of Doom (Punch) attack! Blurr is skewered to the floor! He yipes and starts to pull the metal leg out of him, or to try to do so, and considers aloud, "Maybe I should have crawled along it towards the door? Ouch, this hurts!" Kup agrees, "Maybe. /Always/ have an exit strategy, even if it's just, 'I burst over the bar screaming incoherently an' hope they all too scared or busying laughing to deal with me'. Just remember, an impenetrable fort and a prison got a lot in common. As you soon as you get into a place, figure out how you're gonna get out. It'll become automatic, once you've practiced it a few dozen times." Kup says all that while casually holding Blurr pinned with a chair leg. "Uh, sure, Kup," answers Blurr, still trying to get out from the chair leg. "I'll do that. Practice that instead of just shooting the drone." Then he peers up at Kup. "Could you let me up now?" Kup looks down at Blur and realises that he still has him pinned. Whoops. That's the downside of developing combat reflexes. Kup yanks the chair leg out and offers Blurr a hand up, asking, "Have I geven you enough to think about and work on, or do you need more?" At least Blurr's problems have taken Kup's mind off his own. Blurr nods enthusiastically, then realizes the second part of the question and shakes his head with the same amount of furvor. "You've given me plenty to think about, Kup, so that's what I'll be sure to do!" Again, the weirdly repetative speech patterns remain, now spoken at a more normal pace. Kup smirks at Blurr's fervent denial of wanting more. He reaches out to try to lightly rap Blurr's helm with his knuckles, and he reminds, tone warning, "Don't just think about it, lad - do it. Or I might just check up on how you're doing." On that ominous note, the old veteran exits to leave Blurr to his own devices. Blurr's helm is rapped, because Blurr's not fast enough to avoid it anymore. :( "I won't just think about it! I mean, I'll think about it, just not just!" he answers, straightening into a fairly stiff, enthusiastic salute.